Outdoor Radio: Monarchs in the Meadow

Monarch nectaring on Joe-pye Weed. / © K.P. McFarland

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Monarch butterflies are hard to miss with their brilliant orange color and a wingspan that can reach four inches. But recently they’ve been difficult to find in Vermont because their numbers are in decline. In this edition of Outdoor Radio, biologists Sara Zahendra and Kent McFarland track Monarchs in the flower-filled fields of the Burlington Intervale. We’ll learn how Monarchs migrate to Mexico and the challenges to their survival.

More Monarch Information and Projects You can Join

• Monarch Watch: lots of information about Monarchs and you can order tags from them to tag Monarchs on migration.
• Journey North: you can post your Monarch sightings here and see the progress of spring and fall migration across North America.
• The Monarch Lab: join the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project
• Mission Monarch: join this project to help track Monarchs across Canada.
• e-Butterfly.org: our crowd-sourced site where you can add all your butterfly sightings from across North America.
• Monarch Joint Venture: More than 50 conservation, education and research partners from across the United States are working together to conserve the Monarch migration.
• Vermont Butterfly Atlas: Learn about Monarchs and the 111 other butterfly species recorded in Vermont during the atlas from 2002-2007.

Tagged Monarch about to be released. / © K.P. McFarland

Outdoor Radio is produced in collaboration with The Vermont Center for Ecostudies and is made possible in part by the Byrne Foundation. The program is produced by Vermont Public Radio chief audio engineer Chris Albertine.